Today's review is on Krampus, a Christmas-themed horror film based on the lure of the dark shadow of Santa Claus that was written and directed by Michael Dougherty, the same man responsible for bringing us the long-belated Halloween anthology film Trick r' Treat in 2007. I first saw Krampus around this time last year at my nearest theatre. Although I'm personally not a fan of slasher films, I DO enjoy a good monster movie, and that's definitely what Krampus is. All of this said, Krampus does have one (relatively minor) flaw that stops it from taking a spot on my top ten favorites list, which I will talk about later.
The opening scene of the film is enjoyably hilarious and embodies the stereotypical greed of America, featuring a shopping mall crowded with everyone and their brother being extremely discourteous to the folks around them and ending with two policemen pinning down some of the shoppers. Right off the bat, I had a feeling that I would enjoy this.
Our main protagonist of the film is Max, a young boy who still believes in Santa Claus, his parents; Tom and Sarah, and his sister; Beth. Max also has a German grandmother on his father's side of the family named Omi, a character with a backstory that holds some major significance to the plot later on. However, the good holiday spirit of Max and his family is about to be broken when his sister's side of the family comes to visit for the holidays, consisting of Sarah's sister; Linda, Linda's husband; Howard, and their disrespectful and obnoxiously clichéd children; Stevie, Jordan, and Howie Jr. (they also have a baby, who is thankfully too young to be unlikable in the film). Long story short, the sisters Stevie and Jordan are complete a**holes to Max and make fun of him for believing in Santa Claus, which causes Max to lose his Christmas spirit, thus summoning the wrath of Krampus. The film starts to get fun when a blizzard hits the town, taking out the power and trapping the two families in the house.
Although Beth was nowhere near as unlikable as Howard and Linda's family, I was relatively happy when she was one of the first to go missing upon the arrival of Krampus, who chases her down the road and presumably uses one of his demonic toys to kill her. If my memory serves me correctly, Howie Jr. is one of the first to get killed by being trapped in the form of snowman by Krampus' elves, which made me extremely happy considering that Dougherty very clearly had no intention of making the boy a likeable character.
As members of both families continue to go missing while the survivors are still trapped in the house, Omi eventually explains her backstory with Krampus. Years ago, in a German village, Omi's family had lost the Christmas spirit and the belief in Santa Claus, even though Omi herself still believed. As a punishment for the greed of her parents, Krampus and his minions arrived and dragged Omi's parents to the Underworld. However, they allowed Omi to survive and left her a Christmas ornament with the name "Krampus" engraved on it, as a reminder of what happens when the Christmas spirit is lost.
Even though I won't be giving away the ending of the film in this review, I will say that it is one of the film's weak points. It's a "hooker" ending that leaves the audience to question what actually happened, and I'm personally not a fan of these types of endings.
The creature effects and visuals in Krampus are nothing short of creative, and they are definitely the true strength of the film. It reminded me a lot of Gremlins, one of my all-time favorite horror comedies, and pulled it off well. Krampus' minions include but are not limited to dark elves, killer gingerbread men, and demonic toys. Krampus himself is an interesting character design that is immediately recognizable as the creature from German folklore, but also has a respectable degree of originality. Krampus wears a mask that is presumably the face of a Santa-like creature, leaving the true face of Krampus unrevealed in the film. The design of Krampus actually reminded me a little bit of Pumpkinhead, mainly the hands of the monster in the scene where he confronts Omi.
The one flaw of Krampus that I promised to explain earlier in the review is the character development. While Omi is probably the most interesting protagonist character of the entire film and Max and his family are what you would come to expect from a 2010's horror film, the characters of Linda and Howard's family leave a LOT to be desired. They are basically rude and disrespectful in every way, from Howie Jr. burping at the dinner table and the sisters Stevie and Jordan being completely unlikable jerks, it all does nothing for me, and I can't feel any sympathy for them when they go missing or are killed by Krampus and his minions. This is a cliché that is very common in modern horror films (in fact, it's even a trend that I started noticing with 80's horror films like Child's Play), and, for me, it's also a fault in Dougherty's previous film Trick r' Treat. To me, it seems like this is a modern cliché that Dougherty is following because it's just that: a modern cliché. With films like Gremlins, we have a good amount of characters who don't deserve what's coming to them. Whereas with films like Krampus and Trick r' Treat, pretty much all of the characters deserve what they get. It does the characters and the films no favors and makes them less enjoyable, in my opinion. So, by the off chance that Michael Dougherty himself is actually reading this, I have a bit of constructive advice: Please do more for your characters in your next film, as you've proved that you can do more than what you did with Trick r' Treat, but you still haven't quite hit the mark.
All of this aside, Krampus is an overall good monster film, and it's definitely worth the watch this Christmas. While it isn't without its faults, it makes up for them with creative visuals, creative monster design, and atmosphere. I give it something between a 6.5 and a 7.
Haven't seen this yet...saving it for a rainy day!
Actually, I thought it really was more than clear that the story happened, and where the family ends up at the end, so I had no problem with the film at all, including the ending.
Quote from: Haunted hearse on December 24, 2016, 03:01:24 PM
Actually, I thought it really was more than clear that the story happened, and where the family ends up at the end, so I had no problem with the film at all, including the ending.
Oh, I don't deny that. What I meant was that the ending leaves you to question whether or not the family is actually trapped inside a snow globe or if Krampus merely uses snow globes to keep an eye on his victims.
I thought that they were trapped in the snowglobe, and forced to relive Christmas for all eternity. You can see at the end how they are all forcing themselves to be cheerful.
Hmm... Never really thought of it that way. I don't really have a big issue with the ending. My rating for the film would still be the same irregardless the true meaning of the ending.
Quote from: Haunted hearse on December 24, 2016, 03:16:42 PM
I thought that they were trapped in the snowglobe, and forced to relive Christmas for all eternity. You can see at the end how they are all forcing themselves to be cheerful.
Yep, seemed the same to me.
My observations:
• The ending was cliche...kinda/sorta reminded me of the ending of Jeepers Creepers.
• The Christmas elves reminded me of leftovers from a Star Wars film.
I'm not sure they were trap why would he warned them with the bell if they were trap it's more like I'm watching
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I just watched it again on Christmas, as that and Gremlins make up my new holiday playlist. I still really like this movie. It starts reasonable enough and then just ramps up the absurdity, which works for me. The fact that the characters recognize how insane it is really gives it a boost. It's like they were echoing my sentiment which helped invest me in the characters. As for the ending, I agree with monsterloco that they're living life like before, and not in the snow globe. Omi received a bell and was able to live our her life, so I naturally just assumed that Max had the same thing happen to him.
Looks like they should use the ending of Krampus in psychological studies; pessimist (family is trapped) or optimist (family lives and all is right with the world). I never even considered the happy ending....and still don't.
How do we know for sure that the whole family was subject to the same fate? Maybe it's just the kid who's trapped and everyone else is left behind. The kid offered to take their place, he's the only one we witness getting tossed into the flames, and memory serves me right he's the only one to notice that something's afoot when he wakes up back in the house on Christmas morning.
Quote from: Big Bad Wolf on December 28, 2016, 07:52:50 PMand memory serves me right he's the only one to notice that something's afoot when he wakes up back in the house on Christmas morning.
Nope, the whole family gives a look as if to say, "Oh sh*t."; they all knew something happened or was happening to them.
Quote from: zombiehorror on December 28, 2016, 08:10:18 PM
Nope, the whole family gives a look as if to say, "Oh sh*t."; they all knew something happened or was happening to them.
Well then, I stand corrected. In my defense I haven't seen it since it opened in theaters. I really should remedy that. :P
Quote from: Big Bad Wolf on December 28, 2016, 08:20:48 PM
Well then, I stand corrected. In my defense I haven't seen it since it opened in theaters. I really should remedy that. :P
There certainly are worse ways to spend your time!
We bought the DVD, and there was an alternate ending, which is more like the ending Chakor described. I actually prefer the ending they used. Upon re-watching the movie, I found it was as good as I remembered.